U.S. private sector adds 257,000 jobs in December: ADP

The U.S. private sector added 257,000 jobs in December, the best monthly performance in 2015, said a private survey released Wednesday.

U.S. private companies added 257,000 jobs in December, up from 211,000 jobs in November, said the National Employment Report released jointly by Automatic Data Processing (ADP) and Moody's Analytics, based on a monthly survey.

"2015 had a strong close with December showing the largest job gains of the year," said Ahu Yildirmaz, head of the ADP Research Institute.

"Strong job growth shows no signs of abating. The only industry shedding jobs is energy. If this pace of job growth is sustained, which seems likely, the economy will be back to full employment by mid-year," said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Analytics.

The average monthly employment growth was just under 200,000 in 2015, about 16.7 percent lower than the level in 2014, mostly dragged down by the energy and manufacturing sectors, according to ADP.

In December, small and medium-sized businesses accounted for most of the employment gains, adding 160,000 jobs, while large businesses with more than 500 employees added 97,000 jobs, said the report.

Employment in the service sector rose by 234,000 jobs in December, up from 213,000 in November. Meanwhile, the Goods-producing employment rose by 23,000 jobs in December, after shrinking 2,000 in the prior month.

The ADP survey studied data from private businesses with more than 23 million workers on payrolls but excludes government job growth. Enditem